When we exclaim how lucky someone is, there’s a lot of backstory we’re ignoring.

We all know people who have all the privilege and blessings in the world who haven’t made much of them.

We all know people whose backgrounds make our stomach turn but who have managed to create beautiful, meaningful, wholehearted lives.

Call it soul choices.

But don’t call it luck.

The majority of life doesn’t just randomly happen to us without our having any say. And the things that do feel like they’re “happening to us” are opportunities to make a choice.

We come into this world with a certain set of circumstances, for sure. Some circumstances are awesome. Some circumstances are heartbreaking.

Why and how we come into the world with the circumstances we do remains a mystery.

But there’s nothing mysterious about our ability to choose what we make of those circumstances.

We choose who we spend time with. We choose how to spend our time. We choose what we focus on. We choose what we think about. We choose to listen to ourselves or not. We choose to take care of ourselves or not. We choose to put ourselves out there or not. We choose to love or not.

Our lives are largely the sum of the decisions we’ve made. {Tweet it.}

 

While there’s no such thing as a wrong decision, there is such thing as choosing our perspective, our actions, and even our thoughts.

Next time you think to yourself, “I have the worst luck!” consider this:

Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. You can care for those hours like the precious commodity they are. Or you can waste them.

Everyone has the ability to choose how they see a sucky situation. You can choose to see the blessings and lessons. Or you can choose to only see the suck.

Everyone has circumstances they wouldn’t have consciously chosen if they’d been given the choice. You can make the most of them. Or you can make the worst of them.

A “charmed life” – which to me means a life of ease and fulfillment that belies financial status or worldly success – gets that way because of the choices the person living it has made, not because that person is simply “lucky.”

It’s not luck. It’s choice.

Choose wisely!

 

Over To You:

How have your choices shaped your life?  Which choices are you going to make next?  Join me in the comments below!